LIGHT FIELD PHYSICS

Light field physics models the way that electromagnetic energy ("light") propagates through space occupied by matter ("media"). Elements of media ("mediels") can be homogeneous (e.g., air or water) or heterogeneous (e.g., a surface). Light interacts with mediels in various ways including absorption and scattering. Mediels can also emit light (e.g., elements of a light bulb). Depending on the application, Quidient SREs use characteristics of light measured in the visible or infrared spectrum. In some applications, Quidient SREs use polarimetric characteristics of light, which can be used to effectively estimate material, shape and texture.

SCENE LEARNING

Quidient Intrinsic Solvers™ use non-linear optimization techniques to simultaneously estimate sensor locations in a scene, the characteristics of light flowing in the scene (the "light field") and the characteristics of matter occupying the scene (the "matter field"). In the video nearby, a ray of light can be seen reflecting off a surface element into a moving camera. In this case the surface element ("surfel") is embedded in the hull of a boat. As images are collected along the camera path, characteristics of the surface element such as surface orientation, depth, material and texture can be estimated to increasing degrees of accuracy.

SPATIAL PROCESSING

State-of-the-art methods of data storage and processing are required to reconstruct digital models of quotidian scenes. Quidient SREs use volumetric, spatially sorted, hierarchical data structures to represent scenes. Processing of such data structures can be performed by simple arithmetic operations in a highly parallel manner. The result is tractable computational performance. Quidient databases can be stored stand-alone, distributed and/or hardware accelerated.